Folkloristics, Folklore and Cultural Heritage
Folkloristics is the study of folklore, the informal and meaningful cultural expressions and practices that enrich everyday life. We analyze old and new traditions, stories, visual expressions, cultural heritage, rituals, tales, legends, and popular expressions that influence people's identity and worldview. In this way, we can discover and study cultural patterns, processes of change, norms and values.
The department conducts research on Swedish and European folklore, as well as other ethnological approaches, in the experience and tourism industry, natural and cultural heritage policy, sustainable visits, sustainability, folk history, storytelling and imagination, popular culture and contemporary online folklore, such as memes and ‘fake news’. Stories are important ingredients in processes of creating and maintaining identity, heritage, emotions and continuity, both at an individual and collective level. Stories thus have cultural, political and normative consequences in society.
We study how cultural heritage production and the use of history are constructed and maintained as social phenomena in continuous processes of selection and change. Further, we take into account which actors make use of these phenomena, as well as how value is attributed and what power relations and hierarchical orders it is resulting.